Monday, September 12, 2011

My visit to the car dealership: Expectations versus Reality

I went to the car dealership after work to get my car looked at after the check engine light came on last night.

Expectation (in this fantasy version, the guy at the dealership is played by John Cleese, ca. 1971):
"What seems to be the problem?" Cleese asked.
"Well, my check engine light came on last night."
"Fantastic. Kindly hand over the contents of your wallet and proceed to the waiting room. Someone will be around to forcibly sodomize you when you least expect it."
"Great. Can I at least read until the rapist arrives?"
"No."

Reality:
"What seems to be the problem?" the mullet-sporting mechanic asked.
"Well, my check engine light came on last night."
"Go have a seat in the waiting room and have a free soda or something. We'll take a look at it in a jiffy."
I went into the waiting room where there were six other people. Only ONE of them was playing on his phone. The rest were reading physical books. I devoured a banana and drank a cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and a bottle of Sunny Delight as I read, determined to win some of my money back.
70 pages of The Voice of the Whirlwind later, the mechanic arrives.
"Looks like a rock flew up and broke a couple wires. That's why the check engine light came on.
"How much is that going to cost?"
"About thirty bucks plus labor."
"I can definitely handle that."

There you have it. There were no significant financial losses and I spent 90 minutes reading that I probably would have spent doing housework. I should go buy some lottery tickets.

Well if John Cleese is the dealership guy, he might ask you to "Try to get it back in one piece, 007." Haha. Good thing the repair bill is quite affordable. And at least it didn't take the whole day to repair the damage.

That's pretty affordable and fast for doing car repairs. You kept from being bored while waiting for their analysis by looking at what others do to wait. You probably had the lights fixed already, and that's one thing to be thankful for.